Chronic Cannabis Use & Functional Network Maturation: Age Divergences

Exploring how chronic cannabis use may interact with brain network development across adolescence and adulthood

Adolescence represents a critical period of brain maturation, with large-scale functional networks continuing to develop and reorganize into adulthood. Cannabis exposure during this period may interact with these developmental processes, but existing research has produced mixed findings and has often relied on cross-sectional studies that do not distinguish between different stages of neurodevelopment.

This study investigated how age and chronic, regular cannabis use may interact to influence functional network maturation over a one-year period. Using resting-state functional MRI and seed-voxel analysis, researchers compared adolescent and adult cannabis users with age-matched controls to assess connectivity across seven large-scale resting-state networks.

Results identified age- and cannabis-related differences in functional connectivity, with alterations converging on higher-order processing regions and spanning the salience, executive control, and default mode networks. Importantly, connectivity trajectories differed according to both developmental stage and cannabis-use group, highlighting adolescence as a potential period of vulnerability to perturbations in functional network maturation.

What You’ll Learn:

• How chronic cannabis use may influence functional brain network maturation across adolescence and adulthood.
• Where connectivity differences occur, including higher-order processing regions within the salience, executive control, and default mode networks.
• Why developmental stage matters when evaluating the potential neurological effects of regular cannabis exposure.

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